Undergraduate English, Culture, and Communication Courses

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Courses 100-199

ENE106 Introduction to Literary Studies: Drama, Long Fiction, and Film

This online course provides an introduction to literary studies through a range of critical approaches, narrative perspectives, historical contexts, literary genres, and critical terms. Students will learn how to write compelling thesis statements, evaluate and integrate supporting evidence, and organize arguments logically and persuasively. The primary texts will be drama and longer prose, including a play, a screenplay, a novel, a graphic novel, a wartime memoir, and a film.

Note(s):

Only offered through Distance Education.

Exclusion(s):

ENE100, ENE101, ENE110, ENE112, ENE122

Contact Hours:

0 - 0 - 9

Credit(s):

1

ENE111 Introduction to Literary Studies and University Writing Skills 1

This course provides an introduction to literary studies through a range of national perspectives, historical contexts, literary genres, and critical terms. Through intensive work with short texts — poems, stories, and essays — students will develop the foundational skills necessary for composing persuasive arguments. These include skills in close reading, textual analysis, logical reasoning, argument structure, and effective writing at the university level.

Note(s):

Mandatory for all first year Anglophone students in the Arts programme.

Exclusion(s):

ENE100, ENE101, ENE110, ENE121

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE112 Introduction to Literary Studies and University Writing Skills 2

This course builds on the foundational skills introduced in ENE111 to develop students’ skills in constructing complex and persuasive arguments. With a focus on long texts — novels, plays, films, and long poems — students will learn to write compelling thesis statements, evaluate and integrate supporting evidence, and organize arguments logically and persuasively.

Texts as assigned by instructors.

Note(s):

Mandatory for all first year Anglophone students in the Arts programme.

Prerequisite(s):

ENE111 or equivalent

Exclusion(s):

ENE100, ENE102, ENE110, ENE122

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

2

ENE121 Introduction to Literary Studies and University Writing Skills 1

This course provides an introduction to literary studies through a range of national perspectives, historical contexts, literary genres, and critical terms. Through intensive work with short texts — poems, stories, and essays — students will develop the foundational skills necessary for composing persuasive arguments. These include skills in close reading, textual analysis, logical reasoning, argument structure, and effective writing at the university level.

Texts as assigned by instructors.

Note(s):

Mandatory for all first-year Anglophone students in the Science or Engineering entry programme.ENE121 and ENE122 are restricted to Science and Engineering students.

Exclusion(s):

ENE100, ENE101, ENE110, ENE112

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE122 Introduction to Literary Studies and University Writing Skills 2

This course builds on the foundational skills introduced in ENE121 to develop students’ skills in constructing complex and persuasive arguments. With a focus on long texts — novels, plays, films, and long poems — students will learn to write compelling thesis statements, evaluate and integrate supporting evidence, and organize arguments logically and persuasively.

Texts as assigned by instructors.

Note(s):

Mandatory for all first-year Anglophone students in the Science or Engineering entry programme.ENE121 and ENE122 are restricted to Science and Engineering students

Prerequisite(s):

ENE121 or equivalent

Exclusion(s):

ENE100, ENE102, ENE110, ENE112

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE150 University Writing Skills

This course is aimed at the student who is competent with Basic English grammar and written expression, but desires to develop and hone critical thinking and writing skills. Instructional materials address a broad number of forms and methods used in academic and non-academic writing. Topics range from matters of prewriting practice and the writing process, to aspects of sentence structure and argument, and the elements of style. Through analysis of sample essays and excerpts, students will learn how to move from topic to technique - to apply effective writing and organizational strategies that distinguish good writing wherever it is found.

ENE150 is a traditional writing course for students who want to hone their writing skills and develop their own personal voice. Please note that the use of artificial intelligence tools will not be permitted.

Note(s):

Only offered through Distance Education.
This course may count as a Military Arts credit within the BMASc programme.
This course cannot be used as a credit toward a BA Honours, BA Major, BA General, a Concentration or a Minor. 

Contact Hours:

0 - 0 - 9

Credit(s):

1

Courses 200-299

ENE202 Cross-Currents of Thought in 20th-Century Literature: Modernism

This course introduces students to the major literary and cultural trends of the first half of the twentieth century. Through a selection of British, Canadian, American, and German literature, students will study the styles and themes of literary modernism in poetry, novels, short stories, and one play. The course studies the literature of the Great War, including the English war-poet Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon and the German novel All Quiet on the Western Front. Students will also encounter such important modern poets as Thomas Hardy, W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, H. D., and T. S. Eliot. Students will learn why the short story is a particularly twentieth-century genre and how its innovations apply to the techniques of the modernist novel through discussions of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. More generally, the course provides both a regional and a planetary perspective on humanity, allowing us to consider variations in national and personal definitions of such themes as heroism, utopia/dystopia, issues of gender and sexuality, social and individual responsibility, and freedom. Students will be required to write several short response papers and one major essay. Although this is a distance course, it is also a discussion-intensive course, and all students are required to contribute frequently to the online discussion forum.

Note(s):

Only offered through Distance Education.

Prerequisite(s):

(ENE111 and ENE112) or (ENE121 and ENE122) or (ENE101 and ENE102) or equivalent

Exclusion(s):

ENE210

Contact Hours:

0 - 0 - 9

Credit(s):

1

ENE203 Cross-Currents of Thought in 20th-Century Literature: Postmodernism

This online course examines literature in English from the years following the Second World War to the present. It considers such authors as Michael Ondaatje, Nadine Gordimer, Chinua Achebe, Angela Carter, Kath Walker, Margaret Atwood, and Hanif Kureishi. The course examines how international writers have met the challenges of our increasingly diverse, technological, postcolonial, and globalized world, a world in which identities have become unstable and borders of all kinds have become fluid. Students will contribute to online discussion, write five short formal response papers, complete one formal essay, and write a final exam.

Note(s):

Only offered through Distance Education.
Although it is preferred that students have taken ENE202 before enrolling in ENE203, it is not required.

Prerequisite(s):

(ENE111 and ENE112) or (ENE121 and ENE122) or (ENE101 and ENE102) or equivalent

Exclusion(s):

ENE210

Contact Hours:

0 - 0 - 9

Credit(s):

1

ENE211 Reading the Contemporary World 1

This course develops students’ cultural literacy in a global context through critical examinations of modern and contemporary texts, with emphasis on the topics of nation, identity, culture, and conflict. Students will learn a range of critical theories, such as postcolonialism, queer theory, critical race studies, ecocriticism, feminism, and gender studies, and will integrate this knowledge into an argumentative essay. Students will discuss such questions as how one’s sex, gender, sexuality, class, or race influences one’s position in life or how imperialism and colonialism have shaped and continue to shape the world that we live in. Through such questions, students will develop an understanding of the dynamic relationships between theory and culture, literature and politics.

Note(s):

This course is required for all second-year students in an Arts programme.

Prerequisite(s):

(ENE111 and ENE112) or (ENE121 and ENE122) or equivalent

Exclusion(s):

ENE210

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE212 Reading the Contemporary World 2

How do different genres and media influence the ways in which cultural creators convey their messages? What is involved in the study of popular culture, and what does popular culture tell us about our social, cultural, and political worlds? This course expands the cultural literacy students developed in ENE211 through critical examinations of popular culture, media, and literature in modern and contemporary contexts. In addition to deepening students’ understanding of critical theories and praxes from the first term, this course will develop students’ research skills, including evaluating secondary sources and integrating them into original arguments. Course assignments include a research essay and a formal presentation.

Note(s):

This course is required for all second-year students in an Arts programme.

Prerequisite(s):

(ENE111 and ENE112) or (ENE121 and ENE122) and ENE211 or equivalent

Exclusion(s):

ENE210

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE226 Foundations of Western Literature: Greek and Roman Classics and the Bible

This course is an introduction to the cultural, ethnic, and literary histories that have informed the production of English Literature, and of much Western culture, for the past four millennia. Students will examine how Greek, Roman, and Judeo-Christian texts reflect the values of the periods in which they were written, and why they are important today.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE228 Critical Approaches to Literature and Culture

This course introduces key theoretical and practical questions which arise in the study of literature and contemporary culture such as "Why study literature?" "What constitutes 'great' literature?" "What aspects of culture--such as movies, TV shows, advertising, news media, or music--can be read as 'texts'?" Students will learn how to apply these theories in commenting on literature. Emphasis will also be placed on effective essay writing.

Note(s):

Students considering honours or graduate school are highly encouraged to take this course.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE230 Indigenous Literatures and Media

Storytelling has been (and continues to be) an integral aspect of Indigenous cultures. Oral storytelling, written stories (fiction and non-fiction), poetry, visual and performative arts (i.e., music, drama, dance), and media (i.e., film, social media) share the diverse thoughts and worldviews of the First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples of Turtle Island. This Indigenous-led course provides an introduction to Indigenous literatures and media. This course will encourage students to reflect deeply on what Indigenous storytelling teaches us about history, truth and reconciliation, the present, and our own positionality as Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples alike. Course work will consist of short reflective assignments, in-class discussion, and one term-length research project based on one primary text (or a collection of texts/media).

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE240 The Art and Science of Writing

Through a series of reflective group discussions, write-to-learn assignments, and practical written projects, as well as extensive revision work and feedback, this course will introduce students to the theories and practices of analytical reading, professional and academic writing, and critical thinking across different university disciplines. Students will also develop written communication skills by engaging with texts and other types of authentic material, such as case studies, policy briefs, engineering design reports, and grant applications. These materials come from a variety of authors, genres, and disciplines, including the arts, business, psychology, history, science, engineering, and philosophy. Fundamental grammar and writing skills, models, and organizational strategies will be taught in collaborative workshop settings and real-world applications. Students from all language backgrounds are welcome.

Prerequisite(s):

(ENE111 and ENE112) or (ENE121 and ENE122)

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE290 Creative Writing

This course introduces students—who will one day have stories to tell, and will want to make sense of their world through stories—to writing creatively in a number of genres, including short fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry. Research into the process of writing will enable critical thinking and creativity to work together in order for students to produce their best work in communicating their ideas. Weekly assignments will be expected, as well as submission of a portfolio of original, edited, and polished work.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

Courses 300-399

ENE307 British Literature during the Romantic Period

The backbone of this course is the study of the work of the six great British Romantic poets: Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, and Byron. Careful attention will be paid to the short lyric poems, and we will read parts of the longer narrative poems. Students will be encouraged to explore the common ideas which emerge in these poets' work and the differing ideas of "Romanticism" which are present. The prose of some of these authors will also be examined. Finally, the course will include the study of two novels, by Jane Austen and Mary Shelley.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE309 Hearts of Oak: British Literature and Culture in the Age of Empire

This course focusses on British literature and culture during Queen Victoria’s reign, 1837 to 1901. Examining various types of writing in addition to other art forms, this course will treat texts and art as both products and producers of culture, looking at them within their historical and social contexts and considering how they might support or undermine the empire in which they were created. The course may include in its focus a consideration of the rise of science, the fall of religion, the machinations of empire, and the reconstructions of gender roles as it discusses the cultural upheaval during the tenure of Great Britain’s second-longest-reigning monarch.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6 (Distance Learning: 0 - 0 - 9)

Credit(s):

1

ENE311 Modern British Culture

This course considers such representative modern artists as Virginia Woolf, Wilfred Owen, H.D., T. S. Eliot, W. B. Yeats, George Orwell, and W. H. Auden, alongside such popular media as films, romance novels, and detective fiction. Through discussion and analysis of these texts, students will engage the cultural imagination of Britain in an “age of anxiety” defined by technological change, scientific revolution, mass culture, modern communication, and new understandings of human consciousness. In addition, students will examine British culture as it emerged through war, empire and colonialism, Irish independence, women’s suffrage, labour movements, and immigration, all of which are essential to understanding contemporary British social and political life.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE312 Crosscurrents in French and English Literature (1850-1900)

This course offered jointly as a “dialogue course” between the English, Culture, and Communication Department and the French, Literature, and Culture Department, will be team-taught by a professor from each department. The course will therefore include classes in English, alternating with classes in French; will familiarize students, through analyses of representative texts in French and English, with important aesthetic concepts of the second half of the 19th century, enabling them to trace connections and divergences between the two cultures. At the end of the course, students will not only be able to describe the interactions between the writers of the two worlds, but also be able to apprehend the differences in the understanding of aesthetic movements on either side of the Channel.

Note(s):

This course is designed for students in the third or fourth years in Arts (or at the discretion of the Departments of English, Culture, and Communications and French, Literature, and Culture). One of the three bilingual courses offered.

Prerequisite(s):

Students are permitted entry into this course only if they have attained a ‘C’ in the second language Reading Comprehension examination or equivalent.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE313 Postmodern British Literature

Addressing our contemporary cultural life, postmodernity refers to the destabilization of such notions as linguistic objectivity, progress, identity, national coherence, knowledge and truth, origin, and even our experience of reality. This course examines representative figures of postmodern British culture, such as Tom Stoppard, Angela Carter, Grace Nichols, Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland, Hanif Kureishi, Carol Churchill, Kazuo Ishiguro, and China Miéville, as well as such “popular” material as film, television, music, and pulp fiction. Students will learn how postmodern British culture engages such socio-political forces as imperial decline; globalization; multiculturalism; Welsh, Scottish, and Irish independence; the Welfare State; the diaspora; radical nationalisms; extremism; sexual and gender diversities and the Brexit phenomenon.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE314 Shakespeare’s Peers

This course explores drama by Shakespeare’s contemporaries alongside related selections of poetry and prose from the period. Some of these writers enjoyed popularity equalling or surpassing Shakespeare’s fame in his own era, some collaborated with the famous bard, and some were excluded from the playhouse stage. Students engage with a variety of dramatic genres, such as revenge tragedy, tragicomedy, city comedy, domestic tragedy, closet drama, and court masque. The cultural impact of these generically different plays will receive attention, including what social and political work they performed.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE316 From Beowulf to Lancelot: Warriors, Visionaries, and the Medieval World

This course explores the origins and early development of English literature. Students engage with the intermingling Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and Norman influences that shaped and reshaped the language, culture, and borders of medieval England. Course readings spanning from ca. 700-1000 to 1485 sample the rich variety of early literature and the shifts in values, social realities, and warrior culture it reflects. Genres include heroic poetry and epic, Breton lays, chivalric romance, biblical drama, visionary writing, and Arthurian legend.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE318 Medieval Road Tripping: The Canterbury Tales

This course explores medieval culture and society through the close study of one of the most influential texts to emerge from the era: Geoffrey Chaucer’s pilgrimage narrative, The Canterbury Tales. Among the earliest texts written in the English language after the Norman Conquest, The Canterbury Tales bring together diverse medieval genres, including romance, fabliau, beast fable, folktale, apology, and miracle story. Students engage with the differing ways these genres – and the multiple narrative perspectives they encompass – reflect and respond to social and cultural issues of the late fourteenth century.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE320 Words as Weapons: The Roots of Satire in the Eighteenth Century

Satire can be an effective rhetorical weapon. This course examines poetry and prose satire at a time when these genres dominated an exploding print culture. In the Enlightenment, “wit” was a serious kind of play with the power to build up and the power to tear down—individuals, regimes, and political systems. Students will analyze satiric essays, poetry, and plays in order to identify such central concerns of the period as the idea of a rational universe, the threat of disorder, competing voices, and social mobility.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE322 The Rise of the English Novel

This course is a critical discussion of novels in an age that witnessed prose narratives take hold of the press and of the popular imagination. Students will read and compare a variety of texts that may include travel, epistolary, satiric, and sentimental in order to evaluate the evolution of what has become the most popular genre in our own time. Problems of voice, point of view, and the novel’s love-hate relationship with itself will contribute to the students’ ability to interrogate such issues as class, gender and nationalism in the early novel.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE331 World Literature: Crisis and Conflict

What constitutes a world? How might we respond to crises and conflicts within worlds? In this course, students engage with literature, film, and popular culture to think about responding to violence, alleviating suffering, and meeting unexpected challenges. Reading across genres and geographical regions, we may consider representations of prolonged national crises like Argentina’s Dirty War, political crises like those in Egypt and Libya, and public health crises like Ebola outbreaks. We will think not only about the world we live in but the world of world literature and the world offered by an individual text.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE333 World Literature: Coherence and Incoherence

What makes a world cohere and what makes it coherent? In this course, students engage with literature, film, and popular culture to study what we use to make sense of the world. What cultural conventions facilitate or reflect the coherence or incoherence of landscapes, identities and worldviews? Can we use the same literary forms to represent cities as diverse as Kabul, Karachi, Sydney, and Seoul? Reading across genres and geographical regions, we will consider the aftermath of significant moments of fragmentation–like the breakup of the Ottoman Caliphate and the partition of British India–and attempts at unification–as in China under Mao.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE352 Where is Here? Canada’s Literary and Cultural Evolution

Sampling an assortment of writers, artists, and other cultural influencers spanning some 500 years, this course will explore the evolution of Canada from mere notion to full-blown nation with a distinct, albeit a contested, identity. What do explorers, missionaries, indigenous peoples, journalists, WWII internment survivors, restaurant owners, and others have in common? They are among those whose stories – literary and otherwise – shed light on the historical forces behind Canada’s contemporary cultural tapestry. Themes involving confrontation, cooperation, discovery, growth, opportunity, home, land, and survival (in all of its many forms) will focus our attention on what Canada means…and to whom, when, where, and why.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE353 Blurred Lines: Contemporary Canadian Culture and Identity

Multicultural. Multiethnic. Multilingual. Postmodern. Postnational. Postmortem? If you were tasked to define “Canadian” today, you would arrive at a series of complex questions and claims about what constitutes Canada and Canadianness. These complexities are not new, but they have intensified in recent decades as immigration, globalization, and even social media have further defined Canada. By engaging with an array of voices from the ethnocultural spectrum – including some viewing Canada from afar – we will see how diverse attitudes toward belonging, family, community, war, and (First) nationhood continue to influence the conversation about becoming and being Canadian in the 21st century.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE356 Bridging the Two Solitudes: French and English Canadian Literature

This course is to be offered conjointly by the Department of French, Literature, and Culture and the Department of English, Culture, and Communication; it is to be team-taught by two professors, one from each of the departments. It will focus on comparisons of important aesthetic and cultural movements. Through analyses of representative texts in French Canadian and English Canadian literature, this course will familiarize students with important aesthetic concepts in each of what Hugh MacLennan famously labelled “the two solitudes,” enabling students to trace connections and divergences between the two cultures. Specific texts and topics will change year to year but may include canonical writers (such as Roy, Yves Thériault, Margaret Atwood, Leonard Cohen), and topics such as nationalism, war, economics, religion, gender, and narrative form.

Note(s):

This course is designed for students in the third or fourth years in Arts (or at the discretion of the Departments of English, Culture, and Communications and French, Literature, and Culture). One of the three bilingual courses offered.

Prerequisite(s):

Students are permitted entry into this course only if they have attained a ‘C’ in the second language Reading Comprehension examination or equivalent.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE358 French-Canadian Literature in Translation

Through a detailed study of French-Canadian texts translated into English, this course focuses on French-Canadian culture and its literature. Students will read, for example, a nineteenth-century novel, a contemporary play, and French-Canadian literature from outside Quebec in order to gain an understanding of the unique nature of the literature of French Canada.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE202 or ENE203 or ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE361 American Literature: Visions and Voices

This course will pair American texts from the Colonial Period to the 19th century with 20th and 21st-century works. It introduces students to continuities of form and vision in works by authors from the Puritans to the Postmoderns. Students will engage with a diverse sampling of early, modern, and contemporary texts from a range of genres.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE363 American Literature: The American Dream

This course focuses on 20th-century American literature, dealing with such genres as the short story, poetry, and drama, as well as popular culture: music (from blues & folk to rock & hip-hop) and film. Through lectures, seminars, and readings, students will examine the diverse definitions and staying power of the American Dream, including themes of gender and racial identity.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE371 On the Origins of Scientific Culture: The Rise of Science in the Nineteenth Century

Since it gained its first popular and professional footholds in the early nineteenth century, science and its methods have come to dominate the Western collective consciousness, determining how we interpret and manage our current reality. This course focusses on the period of science’s rise in popular culture—the nineteenth century—and looks at texts ranging from poetry, fiction, and drama, to essays and influential scientific narratives to consider how creative writers adapted the language and preoccupations of science to challenge and enrich cultural discourse, as well as how scientific writers adapted literary forms to express their discoveries to the larger world. The course may include discussions of exploration and travel writing, representations of science and scientists, cultural influences of and on scientific discoveries, and the complex intersections between nineteenth-century scientific advancement and cultural production.

Note(s):

Also offered through Distance Education.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent or permission of the instructor.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE375 Literature and Spirituality

At the heart of both literature and spirituality, we find the same mysteries and questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What’s it all about? This course invites you on an exploration of how the world’s literatures and the diverse wisdom teachings and religious traditions through the ages speak to the spiritual within our human condition. Along with exploring a variety of foundational beliefs and expressions of spirituality's East and/or West, this course will examine the spiritual dimension in sacred and secular literature, and the challenges occasioned by the representation and interpretation of literary encounters of a spiritual kind.

Note(s):

Also offered through Distance Education.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6 (Distance Learning: 0 - 0 - 9)

Credit(s):

1

ENE381 First Feminists: Early Women Writers

This course offers students the opportunity to understand what underpins the gendered society in which we now find ourselves. We examine what cultural norms were first resisted by women in England and America, as well as how the early modern literary marketplace affected such norms even as it enabled this resistance. Students will read a variety of genres in order to explore issues related to writing itself, the family, class, and how the voices of other peoples a time of colonial expansion and slavery relate to the culture(s) of women.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE382 Indigenous Literature: Centring Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Voices

In this course, Learners will explore questions of lived experience of 2SLGBTQ+ Indigenous folks through engagement with works of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer novelists, poets, and academics. Learning will centre on questions of gender, sexuality, colonialism, and reclamation of space by Indigenous voices from multiply-excluded communities.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212 or ENE230) or equivalent or permission of the instructor.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE383 Major Women Writers: 1900 to the Present

The focus of this course is twentieth- and twenty-first-century literature by women. Students will have the opportunity to read and learn about women in the era that created feminism, and trace that evolution to their own lifetime. Common ground among the authors will be identified, but so too will divergence and dispute among women who do not, after all, make up one unified community. Further, by considering the recent past and the contemporary world through the writings of women of many nationalities (including Canadian, Indian, West Indian, Japanese, Welsh, and others) in poetry, essays, short and long fiction, this course is a gathering place for diversity of voice, and of choice.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE384 Indigenous Literature: Centring Women’s Voices

Indigenous women have long been erased from both textual and visual historic records. The work of contemporary Indigenous women writers functions to re/claim these exclusionary spaces and prompts us to reconsider our understanding of the role(s) of Indigenous women in national and international narratives. In this course, intensive study of the contemporary textual records will inform classroom discussions of lived experience of Indigenous women in North America. Learners will engage with works in a range of media and genres, such as poetry, memoir, graphic novels, community think-pieces, and academic publications.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212 or ENE230) or equivalent or permission of the instructor.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE385 Introduction to Children’s Literature

This course conducts a critical/historical survey of literary works in English composed for, or appropriated by, children. Selections may vary annually but each year will include both classic and less familiar texts. The chronological organization will highlight the historical context of the text and enable students to trace shifting ideas about the child and childhood. Formal literary analysis will be complemented by a variety of critical approaches that will enable the class to explore relevant theoretical issues and to comprehend the cultural and ideological work being done by specific texts.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE386 the World Otherwise: The Theory and Practice of Fantasy

This course engages students in the cultural and political roles of fantasy from a variety of historical and cultural contexts. Students will develop a critical vocabulary for understanding the forms and functions of fantasy through the work of such theorists as J.R.R. Tolkien, Sigmund Freud, Tvzedan Todorov, Rosemary Jackson, and China Mieville. Students will apply this theoretical context to works of fantasy in a range of genres and media to understand the ways in which fantasy not only transforms our perception of reality but also interrogates the nature of the real.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE387 Contemporary Children’s Literature

This course examines contemporary literary works in English composed for, or appropriated by, children. Selections may vary annually but each year will include both classic and less familiar texts. The focus of contemporary children’s literature in a particular year might be thematic, such as coming-of-age narratives, childhood and war, or the journey, or generic, such as fantasy or young adult fiction. Formal literary analysis will be complemented by a variety of critical approaches that will enable the class to explore relevant theoretical issues and to comprehend the cultural and ideological work being done by specific texts.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE389 The Influence of English Literature in France in the Enlightenment

This course offered jointly as a “dialogue course” between the English, Culture, and Communication Department and the French, Literature, and Culture Department, will be team-taught by a professor from each department. The course will therefore include classes in English, alternating with classes in French concerning the influence of the English novels (by such authors as Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, Jane Austen) on literature of the French Enlightenment, including their reception, their translation, and their adaptation, in a study of how the novels under consideration are invested with new meanings through translation. The student will come to recognize that translation functioned as a compromise between the two cultures rather than conforming to today’s convention of linguistic and semantic equivalence.

Note(s):

This course is designed for students in the third or fourth years in Arts (or at the discretion of the Departments of English, Culture, and Communications and French, Literature, and Culture). One of the three bilingual courses offered.

Prerequisite(s):

Students are permitted entry into this course only if they have attained a "BBB" in second language or equivalent.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE391 Literary Masculinities

Students in this course will examine a variety of literary genres across time and in different cultures in order to understand diverse models and stereotypes of masculinities. They will consider the meaning of manhood in relation to such figures as boys, brothers, fathers, husbands, workers, soldiers, and lovers. Through literary analysis, they will develop an understanding of the social and cultural evolution of masculinities.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE392 Science Fiction

How much science is there in science fiction and what distinguishes it from other genres like fantasy and horror? Are movies like Iron Man, video games like Halo, and books like Dune all parts of the same genre? Definitions of the genre vary, but broadly speaking, science fiction creates an “imaginative laboratory” in which we can investigate how technological, social, and political change intersect and impact our lives today and in possible futures. This course explores science fiction’s alternate realities, technological extrapolations, and alien encounters. It considers fiction, movies, video games, and theories of science fiction within a range of historical, national, and political contexts. Students will engage such boundary-crossing themes as war, empire, gender, sexuality, the environment, space exploration, embodiment, and the “human.”

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE393 From Fact to Fiction

Fiction’s art is its ability to appear artless. In this course, students will learn that art by combining research methodology with creative writing to ground their fiction in fact. Students will conduct research, examine the history and methods of writing fiction, and develop their own creative writing styles through a series of structured writing and editing exercises and assignments. Ultimately, they will produce their own creative portfolios.

Prerequisite(s):

(ENE111 and ENE112) or (ENE121 and ENE122)

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE394 Short Fiction Workshop

We are a story-telling species. Short stories are a way we learn about human complexity, both in ourselves and others. In this course, students will learn narrative strategies and develop their own voices, bringing these to bear on their own fiction. Working in a genre that seems deceptively simple, they will explore the technicalities of short story writing whether it’s the creation of compelling characters or the many challenges of setting, point of view, and plot. They will also practice the essential act of revision in order to produce dynamic, engaging, and polished work.

Prerequisite(s):

(ENE111 and ENE112) or (ENE121 and ENE122)

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE395 Poetry Workshop

Students in this course will examine key texts, genres, theories, and practices of writing poetry. They will be required to submit writing of their own every week, including both poetry and commentary / analysis upon it. They will submit this work for discussion within a community of writers - the rest of the class and the instructor. Revised verse will then be submitted in a final, chapbook-length portfolio.

Prerequisite(s):

(ENE111 and ENE112) or (ENE121 and ENE122)

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

Courses 400-499

ENE403 Gender and Literature I

This course aims to introduce students to the various ways literature reflects, constructs, reinforces, and challenges gender roles. The course will explore masculinity and femininity, suggesting that they are always socially constructed and historically specific by examining literature from the Middle Ages to the present. In order to do so, students will explore several different feminist approaches to literature and culture. Ultimately, the course will show that understanding gender as socially constructed rather than biologically given is empowering for society as a whole.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6 (Distance Learning: 0-0-9)

Credit(s):

1

ENE405 Gender and Literature II

This course examines the various ways in which literature reflects, constructs, reinforces, and challenges gender roles. The course will explore "masculinity" and "femininity”, suggesting that they be always socially constructed and historically specific. Students will examine the degree to which gender is an organizing principle in the daily life of Western civilization, looking first at how the gendered body is politicized in specific literary works (prose, poetry, drama) and films. They will then investigate how class and race have the potential to disrupt gender as a primary category of analysis. And, finally, they will discuss the challenges to gender analysis raised by the figure of the transgendered person.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE413 Literature, Culture, and Ecology

This course introduces students to the emerging field of “ecocriticism,” a body of ecologically oriented literary and cultural scholarship that explores nature both as a cultural construct and as a real, tangible entity on which humanity--and the more than 30 million other species on the planet with whom we are interconnected--depends for survival. Like feminism, post-colonialism, or queer studies, ecocriticism is at its core sociopolitical and global; as such, the course will consider international and often conflicting perspectives on nature and human responsibility by engaging with a diverse range of literary and cultural genres (drama, poetry, narrative, film, news, internet, social media, and electronic gaming) from around the world. Finally, students may assess Western military perceptions of space and place to determine how they influence our understanding of foreign peoples and cultures during overseas deployments.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE415 Literature, Culture, and Evolution

This course investigates how literature specifically, and art and culture more broadly, emerge from evolutionary strategies designed to maximize our adaptive fitness as a species. Students will explore the relationship between biological and environmental influences on the production and consumption of literature, other arts, and the cultural milieu in which they are produced. They will also assess how and why what literary Darwinist Ellen Dissanyake calls “homo aestheticus” relies strongly on art for such diverse evolutionary purposes as transmitting information, strategizing for future events, maintaining kinship and other social networks, selecting mates, sexual reproduction, and developing cognitive capabilities that serve us in other domains. Art and literature, the course will reveal, are much more than accidental byproducts of evolution: they are, like the imagination on which they depend, central to our survival.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE421 Literary Theory I: Postcolonialism, Race, and Ethnicity

This course offers an advanced introduction to the key concepts and questions of postcolonial theory and related theories of race and ethnicity. This course will survey some of the major texts of these theories, as well as their historical, social, political, and philosophical backgrounds, in order to assess their value for understanding our own relation to and perception of those who are “other” to us. Central to this investigation will be an examination of how categories of racial, ethnic, and cultural difference are constructed, maintained, and contested in literature and culture.

Prerequisite(s):

ENE211 and ENE228 or equivalent.

Corequisite(s):

ENE212

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE423 Literary Theory II: Gender, Sex, and Sexuality

This course offers an advanced introduction to contemporary theories of gender, sex, and sexuality. This course will survey some of the major texts of these theories, as well as their historical, social, political, and philosophical backgrounds, in order to explore the different ways in which categories of gender, sex, and sexuality have been defined and disrupted, problematized and pluralized by competing thinkers and writers.

Prerequisite(s):

ENE211 and ENE228 or equivalent.

Corequisite(s):

ENE212

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE426 Advanced Directed Study

This course is offered under special circumstances and at the discretion of the Department Head where a student with high standing in earlier English courses wishes to pursue a specific topic in some depth. The course is normally conducted on a tutorial basis and usually includes a considerable amount of written work.

Note(s):

For students in Fourth Year Honours English at the discretion of the Department Head. With the approval of the Department Head, this course may count as a Military Arts credit within the BMASc programme.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

0 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

2

ENE428 Screening Shakespeare

This course examines screenings of Shakespeare’s texts in two senses, pursuing questions not only about how Shakespeare’s plays have been adapted for the screen, but about how the plays have been screened or filtered through different cultural, social, and political contexts, attending to the significance of what a given remake sifts out from and adds to the original. Through comparative analysis, students examine adaptations of Shakespeare for what they reveal about our own cultural preoccupations. Students also consider how the knowledge of Shakespeare’s original version, including its first physical and social spaces of performance, informs our understanding of the adaptation. The course introduces critical concepts from adaptation theory, film theory, and performance theory. Students analyze the ongoing relationship between Shakespeare and popular culture, from memes to movies.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE449 Literary Journalism

This course studies various works of literary journalism, which combine the craft of in-depth reporting with the art of writing, or “making facts dance”, as Kevin Kerrane describes the genre. In order to understand the characteristics of literary journalism, students will critically assess newspaper and magazine articles, reviews and books, as well as online material. Writing assignments in the course will put the principles of literary journalism into practice.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE450 The News Media and the Military

The course examines the relationship between the news media and the military within the broader context of the pervasive presence of mass media of communication in the political and cultural realms. A critical personal inventory of the students' habits as mass media consumers forms the basis for the course and for each class. The course studies the rhetoric of mass media communication from Plato to today before shifting focus to an investigation of the newsroom, the business and marketing pressures affecting its operation, and the constitutional and legal rights and responsibilities related to freedom of the press. Students will survey and examine in detail examples and case studies of the evolving relationship between the news media and the military in Canada and elsewhere. The aim of this course is to enable students to critically analyze various print and electronic news products, including their modes and styles of presentation, and to evaluate their relationship to the military.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE451 War Literature I

This course surveys and examines war literature from its origins in the Greek classical period to the First World War. The Iliad, Beowulf and Shakespeare's Henry V will be studied as foundational texts that establish the concepts of the hero and the comitatus, the roles of religion and fate, and the characteristics of the war story. The works of the First World War trench poets, the memoirs of Graves and Brittain, and Hemingway's fiction will focus analysis on how the unforgettable experience of war becomes realized in various literary forms.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE453 War Literature II

This course surveys and examines war literature from the Second World War to the present. The course begins by studying how the unforgettable experience of Second World War combatants is represented in fiction, memoir and poetry. The Canadian novel Execution is used as the focal point of this critical analysis. The stories of non-combatants and civilians, including a survivor of the Holocaust, extend the range of wartime experience beyond the combat veteran. Study of post-war texts focuses on the Cold War and Vietnam. The course concludes with an examination of the writings of Canadians about UN missions and the war in Afghanistan.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE470 Topics in English Literature I

Seminars offered by faculty on topics related to their own research or interests. Consult the departmental home page for further details.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE471 Topics in English Literature II

Seminars offered by faculty on topics related to their own research or interests. Consult the departmental home page for further details.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE472 Topics in English Literature III

Seminars offered by faculty on topics related to their own research or interests. Consult the departmental home page for further details.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE473 Topics in English Literature IV

Seminars offered by faculty on topics related to their own research or interests. Consult the departmental home page for further details.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE474 Chosen Topics in Literary Studies

This course is designed so that professors in the Department of English will be able to share with the students the results of their research in a particular area of literary studies that does not form part of the regular Honours or Major stream. Topics will vary with the interests and research of the faculty.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE484 Post-Colonial Literature

In this course, students will have an opportunity to examine selected modern literary works from Africa, South Asia and the West Indies, as well as to assess how writers in those societies have depicted the throes of revolution, the pain of exile, the struggle for freedom, the waning of colonialism, the anguish of alienation, and the quest for identity. Students will be encouraged to approach the writers and their works historically and critically.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE487 Military Science Fiction

This course examines the long and intimate relationship between science fiction and the military. Students will read canonical works of military science fiction, such as H. G. Wells’ The War of The Worlds, Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, Joe Haldeman’s Forever War, Frank Herbert’s Dune, and Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game. Students will read these texts alongside less known, more international, and more contemporary examples of the genre. The course exposes students to such topics as the changing ideas of the soldier in relation to definitions of the human and the alien; the relationship between science fiction, exploration, colonization, and conquest; the definition of the just war; the nature of future wars; the trans-human and posthuman soldier; science fiction as a means of representing past wars; and science fiction and trauma. Through such considerations, this course explores how science fiction supports, challenges, and transforms our understanding of conflict.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Credit(s):

1

ENE490 Ex Libris: Secrets of the Archives

This course introduces students to archival research in the Humanities. Using a variety of original material that may include RMC’s own archival collections, online material from Library and Archives Canada, or private family collections, students will learn the cultural importance of archives, the many uses of archives, and how archival organization constructs paths of knowledge. Course work will consist of short critical assignments that culminate in an individually curated project. Students will select individual items, conduct primary as well as secondary research on their chosen topics, edit and annotate their chosen archival material, and produce a scholarly edition of their own. Primary research materials might include soldiers’ diaries, literary works, manuscripts, letters, maps, medical journals, and photographs.

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 6

Credit(s):

1

ENE492 Seminar in Advanced Professional Skills

This course is available only to Honours students of English. It is a specialized study of advanced professional skills related to the discipline. At the end of the course, the student will be able to demonstrate a range of advanced skills selected from but not limited to the following: skills in research, writing, editing, public presentation, grant and proposal writing, and colloquium organization. The course may take a variety of forms, from a series of guest speakers to a focused exploration of a current research topic, or a combination of both.

Note(s):

Compulsory for all students in Fourth Year Honours English

Corequisite(s):

(ENE211 or ENE212) or equivalent.

Contact Hours:

3 - 0 - 3

Credit(s):

1